fashion caused Mollie and Rita to stare at one another
questioningly. That suddenly altered tone had awakened an elusive
memory, but neither of them could succeed in identifying it.

Mareno, a lean, swarthy fellow, his foreign cast of countenance
accentuated by close-cut side-whiskers, deposited Miss Gretna's case in
the cubicle which she had selected and, Rita pointing to that adjoining
it, he disposed the second case beside the divan and departed silently.
As the sound of a closing door reached them:

"You notice how quiet it is?" asked Mrs. Sin.

"Yes," replied Rita. "It is extraordinarily quiet."

"This an empty house--'To let,'" explained Mrs. Sin. "We watch it stay
so. Sin the landlord, see? Windows all boarded up and everything padded.
No sound outside, no sound inside. Sin call it the 'House of a Hundred
Raptures,' after the one he have in Buenos Ayres."

The voice of Cyrus Kilfane came, querulous, from a neighboring room.

"Lola, my dear, I am almost ready."

"Ho!" Mrs. Sin uttered a deep-toned laugh. "He is a glutton for chandu!
I am coming, Cy."

She turned and went out. Sir Lucien paused for a moment, permitting her
to pass, and:

"Good night, Rita," he said in a low voice. "Happy dreams!"

He moved away.

"Lucy!" called Rita softly.

"Yes?"

"Is it--is it really safe here?"

Pyne glanced over his shoulder towards the retreating figure of Mrs.
Sin, then:

"I shall be awake," he replied. "I would rather you had not come, but
since you are here you must go through with it." He glanced again along
the narrow passage created by the presence of the partitions, and spoke
in a voice lower yet. "You have never really trusted me, Rita. You were
wise. But you can trust me now. Good night, dear."

He walked out of the room and along the carpeted corridor to a little
apartment at the back of the house, furnished comfortably but in
execrably bad taste. A cheerful fire was burning in the grate, the flue
of which had been ingeniously diverted by Sin Sin Wa so that the smoke
issued from a chimney of the adjoining premises. On the mantelshelf,
which was garishly draped, were a number of photographs of Mrs. Sin in
Spanish dancing costume.

Pyne seated himself in an armchair and lighted a cigarette. Except for
the ticking of a clock the room was silent as a padded cell. Upon
a little Moorish table beside a deep, low settee lay a complete
opium-smoking outfit.

Lolling back in the chair and crossing his